The “living” are appropriating pension funds
While we listened to President Boric speaking to us from La Moneda about his bill to eliminate the disastrous AFP, and we were beginning to rejoice, he then insulted us by maintaining the language and concepts of individual capitalisation, which makes us see that nothing substantial will change, that he lost in the backroom negotiations and that the economic elite not only maintains, but will increase its booty, plundering the workers of the country.
The current accumulated fund, officially calculated at some US$ 150 billion, will by default be available for financial speculation and banking; and we can forget about the possibility of a Social Security System that ensures that a lifetime of work contributing to economic growth will be recognised in the old age of the people in order to safeguard a dignified end of life.
The moribund efforts to give the country a sovereign constitutional change.
Two months after the plebiscite, the negotiating table remains deadlocked over the deadline for sealing a “constituent” agreement.
Once again, we see how the negotiations between the ruling party and the right wing, end with the triumph of the latter. They have already publicly stated that “it is not possible to impose a deadline and that the negotiating table is working at a prudent pace, taking the necessary time to ensure that there are no loose ends left. In this sense, although they state that “it is desirable to close soon, it is difficult to commit to a deadline, because priority must be given to the consistency of the work”.
They also argue that “the process cannot be delayed too long, because of the need to worry about the issues that are really preoccupying Chileans, such as security and the economy”, and that the same mistakes that were made in the recent process cannot be made again. They stressed that they are not willing to hand over a “blank sheet of paper” and that it is essential to respect the constitutional pillars that are agreed (of the current Constitution, by the way), and that for this “a political body such as Congress has to mediate”. This is a denial of what he said during the plebiscite campaign.
So, the die is already cast for change, from a new constitution to a disguised constitutional reform.
The agreements signed before the country in the rotation of presidencies in the lower house are dead.
The Communist Party announced its renunciation of its “legitimate option to preside over the Chamber of Deputies”, given the opposition of different political sectors represented there, including the DC, the PDG and independents, against the initial presidency administratively agreed at the beginning of the current period of Communist deputy Karol Cariola.
“We must announce that, for reasons beyond our control, the conditions are not in place today for a communist militant to assume the presidency of the Chamber of Deputies. A veto has been imposed on our party, with various arguments, which, as we have already pointed out, is not healthy for political coexistence or for democracy in our country,” begins the communique issued by the party led by Guillermo Teillier. We regret that this is the state of affairs, but it is the reality: those who promised their word to Chile confirm that they will not keep it”.
The resurrected Concertación heroes as the main political players of the ruling party.
The Minister of Finance, Mario Marcel, informed a press conference that Nicolás Eyzaguirre (the person with the most appointments as Finance Minister in the last 30 years, known by the nickname of “the Eyzaguirre dog,” and who later worked at the IMF) as the candidate proposed by the Chilean government as the candidate to preside over the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). “There is a certain consensus regarding the need to have a candidate for president who has a technical profile, experience in international organisations, expertise in a broad spectrum of public policies and in these circumstances, with president Gabriel Boric, we have decided to present Nicolás Eyzaguirre,” Marcel said in his address to the media.
SERNAC is saturated with complaints about the business of death
And as a corollary to the week of “All Saints” or “Day of the Dead” as it is celebrated in Mexico, the National Consumer Service (SERNAC) reports that it “will audit cemeteries after detecting, through complaints and citizen alerts from consumers, a series of possible breaches of the Consumer Law”. Its Deputy Director “considers”, “that people could be more vulnerable to abuses given that they are in the context of the grief of losing a loved one”.
In addition, the National Economic Prosecutor’s Office (FNE), reports on the minutes of the launch of the study on the “funeral market”. “That customers, for their part – according to the preliminary and limited investigation carried out – do not have the possibility of contracting some elements of the package to the detriment of others, nor of combining products from different packages”.
The value per deceased person fluctuates between one million pesos (one thousand dollars) and five million pesos (five thousand dollars) and “services” are “sold” annually to around 120,000 “clients”. That is a possible average of three hundred billion pesos (300 million dollars).
This is the panorama of the feast of the dead, where neoliberalism, which does not discriminate between the retired and the dead, has its way in deploying its “enterprises” in our country. Sweet or naughty?
Collaborative writing by Gladys Mendoza; Guillermo Garcés and César Anguita. Political Commission.
